VANLUE — The Vanlue board of education is satisfied that enough players are interested in football to support a varsity team this fall, Vanlue Principal Traci Conley said Friday.
The program’s future had been in doubt after 10 students attended an organizational meeting earlier this month. Conley said football coach Chris Yeater contacted additional students who had expressed interest.
Those potential players, and their parents, signed a form committing to playing in the fall and participating in offseason workouts prior to the upcoming season.
Twenty-three students have given firm commitments to football, Conley said.
“We got a good response,” Yeater said.
“We’re hoping to be able to attract even more kids. The staff and I are looking over these numbers and putting position charts together, and we realized we’d be able to have a number of kids not have to play on both sides of the ball. That’s the kind of thing that will make our program stronger.
“We’d like to be in a position where we can play some junior varsity games on Saturdays.”
Vanlue had faced a Feb. 1 deadline to the Blanchard Valley Conference board of governors to declare if it wouldn’t field a team. Strict financial penalties would have been levied if the district had missed that deadline.
Conley said since the football program is maintaining its status quo, no communication with the BVC board was necessary.
“We only had to let them know if we weren’t playing, not that we were,” she said.